Tales of the Tea Shop: An Azula Ghost Story
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: A visit from the supernatural creeps out the pet lemur and Katara. Azula does not believe any of it. Aunt Wu's assistant Meng has stayed on in Ba Sing Se and agrees to try to remove the ghostly presence. The result kills an innocent toaster.
1. Chapter 1

**Tales of the Tea Shop**

**A Lemur's Ghost Story**

The phone rang at half past one in the morning. Unlike modern phones which have ringtones, the Zhao's Industrial Revolution era phone had loud two metal bells and instead of plastic, had a solid, hardwood body with heavy brass accents and rang loud enough to wake the dead. If she had the desire to throw it, she could have brained a platypus bear with the thing. It rang out loudly and anyone within a kilometer could hear it.

Azula stumbled down the staircase prepared to yank the phone out of the wall after yelling at her brother for phoning late or enduring another one of her mother's 'when will you get married' lectures.

"Hello?" Azula yawned into the phone.

"I am the old lady that lives one door down the street. Do you have a pet lemur?" A frail voice of an elderly woman came out of the receiver.

"We do." Azula didn't have any idea where this conversation was heading.

"He has taken to screeching from your chestnut tree." The elderly lady's voice strengthened. "Please do something."

Azula heard the old lady hang up and listened for the sound of a lemur in distress and heard it.

She tromped up to Karo's room and stomped through the door. It had been a warm sunny summer day and Karo had his window open and Azula could see a large hole in the wire mesh. Outside in the chestnut tree Mitsumi sang in the manner beloved of lemurs and hated by humans.

"Karo!" Azula shook Karo's shoulder.

"House on fire!" Karo snorted to awareness and sat up in bed. "It's one in the morning. Is Katara practicing her Southern Water Tribe throat singing?"

"No." Azula pointed at the dim outline of the hole in the screen. "Your lemur busted out the window and is serenading the neighborhood. The old lady next door called a minute ago."

"What has gotten into that demented primate now?" Karo looked out his window.

"He wants a mate." Katara replied from below. "Male lemurs sing to attract a mate. If the female likes his song they will pair up. I came out here to shut him up because he woke me up."

"I'll toss Karo's Third Place bowling trophy at his head." Azula leaned out the window and spoke at the dim outline of Katara in her night robe standing under the tree. "Why would he want a mate!"

"He wants to make more lemurs." Katara answered back sarcastically.

"We paid good money so he couldn't." Karo shrugged. "They don't grow back do they?"

"You looked at me like I would know." Azula scowled.

"Mitsumi!" Katara made an attempt to attract the lemur's attention.

Mitsumi ran along a branch while maintaining a perfect C sharp above Middle C and jumped onto the roof. A slate tile broke off and nearly took off Azula's head as it fell past the window and made a loud shattering glass sound below. She said a few unmentionable things in the general direction of Mitsumi. Azula swung up out the window and broke what remained of the screen and in a delicate maneuver ended up on the roof.

"Get in there." Azula returned a few moments later with Mitsumi under her arm. "Stupid primate."

Karo heard Katara enter the house more conventionally through the ground floor entrance. Azula slammed the window closed to ensure the lemur would not leave by that route.

* * *

"Mitsumi is lonely." Karo told Azula as she passed though the living room on her way to claim to some tea. Karo had given up on getting any sleep and finally left Mitsumi in his room and decided to retreat to the couch.

"How can he be lonely?" Azula said casually. "Don't you need a working central nervous system to have emotion?"

Mitsumi chattered at the basement door.

"I let him out of your room." Azula told Karo. "You should take him for a walk since he probably needs to go to the bathroom."

"Why don't you?" Karo raised his eyebrow. "You're all dressed."

"I still may want to shove him under a carriage for all the trouble he has caused." Azula warned.

Mitsumi whined at the foot of the door.

"I think we have a ghost in the house." Katara emerged out of the basement as Karo stood up and set out to clean and dress himself for the coming day.

"A ghost?" Azula looked dubious.

"Who owned the house before your mother purchased it?" Katara asked as Karo walked upstairs.

"I have no idea." Karo shrugged. "This place is a century old so any number of people could have called it home."

"No one has made tea." Azula shouted from the kitchen. "Where did your mom go?"

"To the market I think." Karo shouted as he closed the washroom door.

"I heard footsteps in the basement." Katara walked into the kitchen. "Mitsumi has begun to act weird and I get cold chills."

Mitsumi ran into the kitchen with his eyes wide open and hair standing up on end.

"Our lemur sees dead people?" Azula lit the front burner of the stove and placed a kettle of water on it. "Quite the talented lemur."

"Have you or Karo heard anything odd?" Katara asked Azula.

"Nothing I would consider a ghost." Azula snickered.

"What could make sounds like footsteps?" Katara watched in horror as Azula emptied raw tea into a cup.

"The boiler decided to make a dash for freedom?" Azula looked down at the lemur hiding behind her and deftly avoided dumping the kettle of boiling water. "The Ba Sing Se sewer 'gater digging his way to surface level?"

"And the cold chills?" Katara watched and wondered if such a large amount of tea could kill as Azula sipped her tea calmly. "Isn't that tea a little – uh – chunky?"

"We could call ourselves _The Ghost House of Melbourne Street_." Azula quickly drank the tea. "Come on and let's have a look."

Azula picked up Mitsumi and walked with Katara to the basement stairway. Mitsumi had decided he wanted none of this and squirmed out of Azula's grasp and flew upstairs to hide as he squealed in terror.

"I still think that demented animal has developed a brain tumor or something." Azula muttered.

"I heard footsteps in this room this morning at five." Katara pointed at the light tan wooden floor in her basement apartment. "I came out turned on the light and saw nothing."

"You have a dead animal rug and are neat to the point of insanity." Azula bounced up and down on the floor but the floor had no give. A large white bearskin rug covered the floor but in a tribute to her mother the living room of her apartment was neat and orderly. The kitchen had white cabinets and a gray marble counter top and neatly arranged glass jars lined up perfectly sat next to the clean sink. Azula felt out of her element.

"Feel that?" Katara shivered.

"Why is Mitsumi hiding in the light in the hallway!" Karo yelled down to the girls. Mitsumi had climbed into the wrought iron and amber glass light fixture and Karo wondered if the wire it dangled from would bear his weight.

"Katara thinks we have a ghost!" Azula yelled up.

"As long as he pays rent!" Karo came down the stairs adjusting the red and gold collar of his vest. He looked back as a loud thump, the sound of breaking glass and a panicking lemur resonated though the entire house.

"See!" Katara pointed up at the source of the sound.

"That stupid lemur!" Karo growled. "That proves nothing except that the hallway light can't bear the weight of a lemur and my mom will probably have me fix it."

"Did anyone die in this house?" Katara asked Karo.

"I like to think I'm slowly dying within its walls." Karo scowled.

"I knew it." Katara held a yellowed piece of newsprint. "I found out about our ghost from the back issues of the newspaper."

"That fuzzy moron took out the light and ripped off the metal box that kept it in place." Karo stood on a stepladder and tightened a screw as he replaced the metal box that held the wiring in place. Azula held out the tools and on the floor Katara spotted the new and equally ugly green light with ugly brass accents

* * *

"Did you know the bricklayer died when a wagon load of bricks fell on top of him?" Katara held out the old article. "He died in the basement! I knew it! We do have a ghost!"

"Creepy." Karo pulled on the wires in the box. He climbed down the wooden ladder and picked up the box with the new light in it. "That must be a hundred and thirty years ago."

"He may have left some unfinished business." Katara said. "He wouldn't expect to have a ton of bricks fall on him."

"What unfinished business?" Karo tried to find a set of instructions for setting up the light but found none. "As far as I can tell we have all the bricks we need in the places we need."

"We can call him the_ Ghost of the Melbourne Street Townhouse Complex_." Azula made her voice sound eerie and distant.

"I don't think you two are taking this seriously." Katara said starkly. "I have seen things I can only explain by a supernatural presence."

"So our lemur starts acting like a whackjob?" Azula began. "And you go to the library and find out about a workplace accident a century or more ago?"

"We had no idea." Karo examined the wires in the box which consisted of a black and a white wire and a bare copper one. The new hall lamp had two brown rubber wires and Karo realized the standards for the new electrical technology had not been fully worked out. "What do we do now? Stage an elaborate ceremony to exorcise the bricklayer. Maybe he will go away if we have the house done over in stucco?"

"No." Katara said sadly. "But such tragic deaths often leave the spirit of the person trapped on this level of reality."

"Indeed." Azula heard Mitsumi chattering in Karo's room as the lemur took a nap and dreamed of catching flies.

"I have lived in this house for sixteen years and I didn't know this place had a dark history." Karo tightened the wire nut and began to stuff the loose wire into the box. He tightened the screws on the base of the lamp and let it hang in place.

"You don't believe in ghosts." Azula held up the light bulb.

"I didn't know this place was the site of a workplace accident." Karo grudgingly went back up the small ladder and snapped the bulb in place. "I find it sad that a young boy died so tragically in this place."

Azula flipped the switch and the light came on. It filled the hallway with a putrid green glow that looked much like cheap mint mouthwash.

"Why did you get such a hideous light?" Azula asked almost as an aside.

"It was on sale at Earth Kingdom Tire." Karo shrugged.

* * *

"Come and bring Mitsumi!" Katara rushed up to the dining room table as Azula made a house of cards. Karo had decided to spend his evening reading while Azula sipped tea and had a large house of cards assembled in front of her. The sun had set and the house became pleasantly cool in the evening. She had used four card decks to get it a meter tall. Mitsumi slept on the living room couch next to Lady Ursa who had embarked on knitting a rug out of dark red wool or one of those house tents for use in killing termites. Lady Zhao seldom had a clear idea where her knitting would take her.

Azula's office block of cards fell over and scattered on the floor. She stood up and glared at Katara then went over to the living room and picked up Mitsumi. Lady Ursa smiled pleasantly as her knitting project metastasized into a large blanket.

"What do you need fudge brain for?" Azula asked with some irritation. Mitsumi chattered louder as they went toward the basement door and then squirmed, yowled and leaped away from Azula.

"Ow!" Karo screamed from upstairs when Mitsumi ran over him as he lay on his bed reading a book. Mitsumi hid under the bed and had no intention of coming back out.

"I keep hearing footsteps." Katara pointed at the furnace room. "I heard a voice from in there."

"Hello?" Azula opened the door to the furnace room and pulled on the metal chain that turned on the light in the room. She tapped the concrete floor and walked around the small room.

"I heard a voice from in here." Katara stood at the edge of the door.

"No one but us chickens, a middle aged gas boiler, the fuse panel and boxes of stuff we should sell at a yard sale." Azula looked in a box of hockey cards. "Number 22 -Yu Shui – Goalie for the Ba Sing Se Warriors."

"How do you explain the footsteps, the voices and the fact Mitsumi won't come near this place?" Katara remained standing at the door.

"The pipes creaking in an old house?" Azula found a box of hockey pucks in another box. "The boiler makes noise when someone calls for hot water. What did the voice say?"

"I thought it said help." Katara looked uneasy.

"Perhaps the boiler has something to say. Maybe you have a future as a appliance whisperer?" Azula found a goalie stick and tapped it on the cement floor. Karo had long enjoyed hockey but proved too small to play and the hockey memorabilia found its way here.

"Where does the large metal door in the floor go?" Katara pointed to a metal door painted gray to match the concrete about the size of a large book in the floor.

If something leaps out at me, hit them with this." Azula handed Katara the goalie stick. Azula opened the hinged door and stood back.

"What is it?" Katara asked and looked over Azula's shoulder.

"A hole in the floor." Azula said quietly. "With pipes – it's the access hatch for the household drains."

The room grew very cold and the bulb blew out with a pop.

"Crap!" Azula swore and kicked the metal door closed.

"Now what do we do?" Katara held the goalie stick in her hand.

"Get a new bulb." Azula shrugged.

"Shh!" Katara hushed Azula and whispered. "Can't you hear that?"

"Footsteps." Azula looked around the unevenly lit room but saw nothing. Azula refused to believe in ghosts and began to try to find a direction on the rather ominous sound. She looked in the small furnace room and in the room under the stairs but found no clues. It surrounded her and didn't come from inside walls or change loudness when she moved to Katara's neatly kept kitchen.

"All the hairs on the back of my neck went up." Katara said quietly.

"Tell him I like the tan colored brick and he did a very good job on the chimney." Azula peered in Katara's bedroom.

"I realized something you might find even more unsettling." Azula looked around for something to land a fire bolt on. "You know this may provide evidence for evolution in action."

"Evolution?" Katara stared in unfocused confusion at Azula.

"The Fire Nation has a saying:_ you have nothing to fear but fear itself and spiders_." Azula began to sound professorial. "Before we had the basement remodeled, I used to find large spiders down here along with abnormally large roaches. I killed lots of roaches because they were immensely stupid but the spiders seemed to grow smarter as I faced off with them."

"What are you going on about?" Katara ignored her concern about ghosts for a moment.

"Assume that I killed the large dumb bugs because only they were stupid enough to walk across the basement floor where I could land a spanner on them?" Azula paced the kitchen with her hands locked behind her back. "I would have selected for smart spiders that grew large on a diet of roaches and the odd rat."

"Smart spiders?" Katara sneered at Azula's Darwinian theory of the rise of the smart spider.

"We haven't had rats come around." Azula looked under the sink. "Oh mother of all creation!"

"Can I ask you something?" Karo kept a calm in spite of the fact Azula had run into his room screaming something about a blight to all things bright and beautiful and climbed on his desk. "Are you avoiding the floor because you hate my rug or did you just decide gravity just isn't your thing?"

"How big to spiders get?" Azula looked at Karo.

"I would rather not know." Karo answered back. "I read about a spider the size of a carriage in a fantasy novel."

"The largest one you have ever seen?" Azula did not step down from the desk.

"The size of a tea saucer?" Karo sounded doubtful. "Anything larger and I probably would have repressed the memory in an act of self preservation."

"I killed the spider." Katara walked slowly up the stairs.

"How?" Azula asked back. "No one can kill that thing without inventing some kind of weapon of mass destruction."

"I would prefer ghosts." Karo sighed.

"I froze it to death with water bending and used the goalie stick to slapshot it against a wall. It shattered into hundreds of pieces!" Katara appeared at the door. "Do you want to see what's left?"

"No!" Karo and Azula shouted together.

"Azula?" Karo asked. "Get off my desk."

"Wait!" Karo continued. "You used my prized autographed goalie stick? The one I in my _prized __collection_ of hockey memorabilia?"

"Yes." Katara said unemotionally.

"I could deal with ghosts." Karo grumbled. "Where did you find this spider?"

"Azula found it." Katara said. "Then she became a blur as she ran up to hide on top of your desk."

"I have a healthy instinct for self preservation." Azula answered calmly.

"I want to hold a seance." Katara announced. "While you have some big spiders I still have the feeling we have a ghost."

"Are we invited?" Azula asked somewhat sceptically.

"Of course." Katara said. "We need at least four people to make this work."

"Oh goody." Azula said sarcastically.

"Can you get off my desk?" Karo asked quietly. "You have trampled all over my tax return."

* * *

Karo came home from a brief shopping trip to buy ink and stationary. He had need of some office supplies and had walked to the local Wing Shu Printing and Office Supply Depot. This store advertised that if_ they didn't have it then your office didn't need it_. A young girl could have a stack of '_Have You Seen My Lost Poodle Monkey_' posters printed for two copper pieces a copy but the staff did not promise to get all of the characters correct.

In spite of the fact the day was sunny and clear Karo tripped into the front door on a large wooden crate the size of a coffin on the front stoop and banged his head on the sturdy front door of the house and then cussed loudly. His bag of office supplies landed in the juniper bushes beside the stairs.

"What the..." Karo rubbed his head as the front door opened and Katara stuck her head out the door.

"Oh! It arrived." Katara said enthusiastically. "Aunt Wu promised to send me a parcel of supplies for the séance."

"The Fortuneteller shipping cadavers in the mail?" Karo said as he waited for his vision to clear. "You hadn't mentioned that séance thing in a week and I had hoped you had forgotten about it."

"The toaster doesn't work!" Azula yelled from the kitchen. "The bread is jammed."

"Hold on." Karo replied. "Can you move this thing out of my way so I can get in the house."

"I will have to read Aunt Wu's instructions and maybe we can have the séance tonight!" Katara picked up the box and Karo walked in the house scratching his head.

"Can you fix this?" Azula walked into the living room as Karo sat down and Katara set he package down on the coffee table and she held the silver toaster in front of Karo.

"You said bread was jammed." Karo looked inside his favorite break burning device. "That is a bagel."

"I didn't think it made a difference." Azula turned the toaster upside down and shook it.

"You have to cut a bagel in half." Karo said in a tired voice. "You stuffed the whole thing in one slot and it jammed."

"I noticed it did take some force to load it in the toaster." Azula mused as she scattered burned, brown and smelly bread crumbs on Katara's package. "Can you fix it?"

"Can you two listen to me!" Katara said loudly. "Forget about that toaster."

"Can you fix it?" Karo asked politely.

"No." Katara began. "Last time I checked water and electricity don't mix. Listen! I need you two to help me host this séance so we can contact the spirits of the dead! Azula quit rolling your eyes!"

"Your plan seems perfectly rational." Azula lied.

"I invited Meng over to help with the ceremony." Katara explained. "Karo! You quit rolling your eyes."

"Meng always kisses me on the cheek when she sees me." Karo said sheepishly. "It makes me uncomfortable since I'm shy."

"Azula is your fiance!" Katara almost seemed to speak as if explaining something to a moron. "How do you make that work if you are so _shy_?"

"He has learned to obey me." Azula explained. "That helps overcome many barriers."

"This day gets better and better." Karo sighed heavily and tried to look small as he sat on the couch with his injured toaster.

"How do you play poker with Tarot cards?" Azula sat at the small wooden table in the middle of Katara's living room and shuffled the deck of Tarot cards that had come in the crate sent by Aunt Wu. Katara had soon come to regret the decision to ask Azula to help her prepare for the séance later that evening. Katara had _tried_ hard to try and get along with Azula but Azula _tried_ hard to make herself a complete and utter pain. Katara tried her best to put up with Azula because the princess had such a tragic life and had to live with a shattered mind. Katara suspected many of Azula's irritating traits arose from her great intelligence and her incurable social incompetence.

"Meng knows how to read them." Katara placed a red cloth over the small table as Azula stared at a card labeled Death. Katara had picked a light blue color for the walls of her apartment, white for the trim and the blood red tablecloth clashed perfectly with the décor.

"So irrational belief in the supernatural runs in the family." Azula mused. "What happened to Karo?"

"He left to pick up some things for tonight and escort Meng from the tea shop to here." Katara looked at the table.

"I didn't know the local greengrocer sold ectoplasm." Azula shuffled the deck of cards in her hand.

"Do you remember what I asked you to do?" Katara looked at Azula.

"Not off the top of my head – no." Azula shrugged. "I thought you wanted my company."

"Lady Zhao said I could use her best red tea set." Katara picked up a pair of heavy brass candlesticks with blood red candles and adjusted their position. "I asked you to bring it downstairs.

"Oh." Azula walked up the basement stairs then returned a few seconds later with a light bulb in her hands.

"Why?" Katara could only bring herself to ask that one question.

"Karo just arrived with Meng and he bought light bulbs." Azula pointed at the glass bulb. "Do you know it took the inventor two years almost ten thousand tries to find the right filament for inside this bulb."

"What about the tea set?" Katara asked in exasperation.

"He didn't invent that." Azula placed the bulb on the counter.

"I have my mom's tea set." Karo labored down the stairs with a large wooden box filled with gray packing paper. "She has only one request – don't let Azula make tea."

"Where is Meng?" Katara asked. "You did remember to meet her at the tea shop?"

"She is visiting with my mom." Karo placed the crate containing the tea set on the counter.

"Did she call you cute and kiss you on the cheek?" Azula cooed.

"How many Fire Nation princesses does it take to change a light bulb." Karo noticed the bulb sitting on the counter.

"How many?" Katara had never heard a light bulb joke before and thought this was a serious discussion.

"Well it takes five." Karo began. "One princess holds the bulb, the other four turn the stepladder."

Azula hit Karo in the head.

* * *

"The séance will allow us to contact the spirit of the deceased." Meng began with all the seriousness of Sunday Mass. She gestured over the table with great ceremony and looked intimidating in her ornate black robes. She had ordered Azula to quit sneering.

"How many brain cells did Azula kill when she hit me in the head?" Karo fussed over the boiling kettle on the gas ring in Katara's kitchen. "Of course my father came back from the dead so what do I know?"

"How long have you had the sense that you shared this place with a ghost?" Meng asked Katara.

"I moved in and almost immediately I felt something." Katara explained as she teased her hair loops.

"Have you ever felt a presence in this house?" Meng asked Azula.

"No." Azula answered flatly. "Of course I may have mistaken the walking dead for a delusion."

"Have you ever felt a strange presence young Karo?" Meng asked seriously.

"Until Katara brought it up – no." Karo scratched his head. "But we never came into the basement and I had no idea the bricklayer who built this house got crushed by a wagon of bricks."

"I can tell both you don't believe in ghosts." Meng lectured Azula and Karo.

"I have my doubts." Azula sneered.

"I have lived in this house for most of my house and never noticed anything." Karo added dutifully.

The lights went out in Katara's basement with a loud electrical pop.

"Ow!" Azula banged her knee on the table as a blue flame grew from her hand. The blue light from Azula's bending bathed the room in an eerie glow.

Mitsumi rushed into the room and climbed up Karo and then hissed loudly as he sat between the two candles.

"Our guest has turned up." Meng stood up.

"The bulb blew." Azula lit the candles. "They don't last forever."

"I bring you a message from beyond the grave." A ragged low voice announced loudly.

"You took out the light bulb." Karo complained.

"Hush." Meng said sternly.

"They cost half a silver each." Karo felt the need to remind everyone of the cost of mass produced items.

"I don't think it cares." Katara pointed to the outline of a human casting a glowing green light in the corner of the room.

"_The Ghost of Melbourne Place_?" Azula asked carefully.

"How can we help you?" Meng asked with a calm voice.

"I do not approve of the young Water Tribe woman living here." The voice did not seem to come from a direction and everyone felt like it shook them more than spoke to them as it resonated through the basement.

"Oh dear." Meng sighed as the green hazy presence faded away.

* * *

"Doesn't it strike you as odd?" Azula sat on Karo's bed as he sat at his desk and combed his hair to prepare for the coming day of classes. "A one hundred and thirty year dead bricklayer can't find anything to complain about except for Katara."

"I wondered about that too." Karo fixed his hair ornament. "I would think he might have complained about having a ton of bricks fall on him. Even a complaint about the pastries served at his memorial service makes more sense."

"I find Katara insufferable at times but I didn't know the undead did so as well." Azula brushed a few flakes of dandruff off of Karo's shoulder.

"The green apparition seemed pretty convincing. Maybe it needs personal space." Karo stood up from his desk and checked to make sure he had his transit pass ready. "How do you explain the green other realm presence?"

"I can't." Azula followed behind Karo as he left his room. "That doesn't mean it couldn't be faked."

"Before you two leave can you help Katara?" Lady Zhao called. "She needs help changing a light bulb."

"We need four more Fire Nation princesses." Karo decided the sharp smack to the head was worth it.

"My light doesn't work." Katara called from the kitchen. "None of these bulbs work."

"They're new." Karo looked at the glass globes. "I find it hard to believe they are all duds."

"Ow!" Azula unscrewed the light bulb from the fixture that hung over the dining room table and tossed it between her hands to cool it off.

"Hand it over." She implored Karo for a new bulb.

Karo handed the bulb over to Azula.

The light worked as advertised.

"I tried one of the new ones." Katara said. "Follow me."

Azula and Karo obediently followed Katara down the basement stairs. The basement reeked of fish oil from a dim lamp Katara had set up on the kitchen counter.

Karo flipped the switch on and off and looked at it in bewilderment when it didn't turn on the light.

Azula picked up the fish oil lamp and headed for the small room that housed the boiler and fuse panel.

"Fuses fused?" Karo asked over Azula's shoulder.

"They look fine." Azula held the lamp up to the panel.

"Could this have happened because of our ghost?" Katara asked from the kitchen.

"Call an electrician." Azula slammed the metal door of the fuse panel closed.

* * *

"That transit ride home had to be the least pleasant ride I have had in many years." Karo opened the front door of the house as it began to rain. "What possessed you to complain about the smell of a burly guy with tattoos?"

"Katara cooks some Water Tribe dishes that smelled more pleasant." Azula followed Karo in the house.

"He came close to hurling me off the train and eating my head." Karo grumbled. "I think you want to see me killed."

"You are my fiance." Azula said. "You have to defend my honor."

"Leaping Lizards!" Karo saw Meng in a set of ornate ritual robes and nearly jumped into Azula's arms. Meng had Mitsumi on her shoulders and the little lemur jumped onto Karo's shoulder.

"Katara fetched me to perform an exorcism." Meng held a sensor with a floral scented incense making wisps of blue smoke. "She thinks her lights are possessed."

"Did you get them working?" Azula did nothing to hide her scorn.

"The lights work." Meng hugged Karo in greeting. "Now the toaster is haunted."

"My toaster? The beloved burner of bread for my morning tea?" Karo looked sternly at Meng. "My toaster has a supernatural spirit dwelling in it?"

"I have to see this." Azula marched into the kitchen.

"Your toaster has the spirit of a dead bricklayer dwelling in it." Katara came up the stairs and told a confused looking Karo.

"Does it still toast bread?" Karo asked as he tested the toaster by dropping two pieces of bread into it.

A loud unearthly scream filled the whole house as Azula dodged two slices of toast at ballistic velocity.

"The toaster screamed." Azula spoke as if this happened in the normal course of events.

"So I take it we have to perform an exorcism on the toaster?" Karo had not anticipated ever having to say those words.

"I convinced the spirit of the undead to move from the fuse panel into the toaster." Meng pointed to the toaster.

"We have two slices of bread sticking out of the ceiling." Azula felt the need to point that detail out.

"I will swallow your souls." The toaster spoke in a reedy metallic male voice.

"That seems out of character for a dead bricklayer." Azula told the toaster.

"This is progress in your eyes?" Karo scratched his head.

"Your house lies over a portal to the spirit realm – an ancient Earth Kingdom temple site." Meng explained. "When they built these homes, the city moved the temple into the park. The spirits do not like living in the park next to the tennis courts."

"Uh huh." Azula nodded. "Sounds very much like their problem."

"And yet no one has suggested a fix for the toaster." Karo said politely.

"I will swallow your souls." The toaster replied as the bread lever moved up and down as it spoke. Mitsumi had the common sense to run off and hide.

"I won't clean out your crumb tray." Karo shook his head.

"You will pay for your crimes against the spirit realm." The toaster added and a black hole opened up in the bread slots. Karo stood back as an evil darkness filled the bread slots.

"Fix this." Karo placed two slices of bread and the toaster shredded it into tiny crumbs and spat the remnants all over the kitchen. "We can't live with a demon in the toaster! Our toaster refuses to toast and in my mind this violates the _Karo Toaster Contract_ we had when I paid good cash money for the appliance! Fix this!"

"We can chuck our garbage into it." Azula tossed a lemon slice into the toaster. The toaster chewed it into so much yellow goo. "It can shred paper."

Katara unplugged the possessed appliance and dove for cover as the toaster exploded with a loud bang and died a glorious death. Karo and Azula hit the floor while Meng ducked behind the kitchen door. Silver bits of the toaster lodged themselves in the walls and wooden doors of the cabinets.

"Okay?" Azula looked up at the remains of the toaster. "I didn't see that coming."

"As the foremost expert on demons, what do we do now?" Karo got up off the floor and looked at Meng. "My mom will want answers to many questions. I can't live without toast and so I am off to buy a new toaster and avoid explaining the loss of the last one to my mom."

* * *

"It took you two hours to replace the toaster." Azula leaned over Karo's shoulder as he set the toaster on its special place on the counter. Karo had deemed the replacement of the toaster as an urgent priority and had returned after buying one.

"I need my toast and it spared me the awkward explanations you guys had to give to mom." Karo placed the new toaster on the counter. "Where is mom."

"The boiler is possessed." Azula said. "Your mom went to help Meng talk it out of blowing the house to bits."

"Would a brisk walk in the general direction of_ the hell away from here_ be a good move?" Karo carefully selected two slices of bread and prepared to make toast.

"I have dealt with the demonic presence." Meng said as she walked up the basement stairs followed by Lady Zhao.

"Mitsumi can come out of the box of Lady Zhao's shoes?" Azula asked.

"Demons must agree to leave." Meng explained quietly. "I had to provide it with a place to live."

"Is he gone?" Karo asked.

"He agreed to leave the house." Meng fidgeted.

"Where did he go!" Azula asked strenuously.

"He took possession of the chestnut tree." Meng answered in a manner that positively insured doubt. "We came to a compromise."

"I have tomatoes to attend to." Lady Ursa said as she turned to Karo. "I will be in the back working in the garden if anyone needs me. Get the toast out of the kitchen ceiling."

"We had a real _ghost_ in this house?" Karo asked Meng in disbelief as they stood gazing at the chestnut tree gently waving in the breeze. "Why didn't this all end with a massive black hole that sucked us all into a massive dark hole of nothingness?"

"I still don't believe it." Azula huffed as she walked up to the chestnut tree and looked into its canopy of dark green leaves. In an act of idle disrespect for the plant kingdom, she kicked the tree with her foot. A moment later a cascade of young and unripened chestnut fruit fell on her head. She dodged out of the way just in time to avoid a headache.

"I still don't believe it." She shouted defiantly as she looked at Meng. "That tree has always proven disagreeable."

Azula stared at Meng making sure her scowl conveyed doubt for the supernatural, contempt for chestnut trees and grave doubt about Meng's abilities when a blue fluorescent light engulfed the yard. Azula had the feeling her atoms had begun to fall apart and she had a bit of a concern that whatever sought to rip her atoms apart might not go to the trouble of picking them up and putting them back in place.

Karo held onto Meng and despite his desire to appear manly began to scream like a girl. Somehow this provided some small amusement for Meng as they winked into nothing.

Katara and Mitsumi didn't notice anything at first until their ears popped. Mitsumi grabbed Katara's braid as the house fell apart around them.

Lady Zhao had gone out the back to tend to the garden that she kept in the townhouse commons when the townhouse shrank into a bright blue point of light and vanished with a loud pop preceded by the distinct scream of Karo. She stared with great alarm at the hole where her home once stood.

"I wonder if my insurance will cover this?" She said to herself in shock.

* * *

Azula grabbed Karo as bits of the house fell around them. Katara and Mitsumi ran full pelt ahead of them. Meng had found a round hole covered by a plastic green grate where they could take cover and shouted urgently to guide them to it.

"Anything to confess!" Azula and Karo jumped into the hole as the boiler, a wardrobe and various bits of the house including many bricks fell all around them. Katara flashed her water bending prowess to pile drive the red living room couch away from the group cowering in the hole. Katara jumped down into the hole as the crashing sounds of furniture hitting the ground and splintering wood died away.

"Are we dead?" Karo hunkered down in the hole. "And where is my mom!"

"The house has seen better days." Azula saw the house teetering at a forty five degree angle over the edge of an unnaturally large bed of purple and pink petunias in a circular shaped flower bed. "Your mom had gone out the back to do some gardening."

"I didn't do anything!" Meng protested and coughed.

"We're not in Ba Sing Se anymore." Katara peered out over the cloud of settling brick dust.

"How do you know this?" Azula panted as she looked out over the nicely manicured lawn.

"Have you ever seen buildings like those?" Katara pointed to large steel and glass towers in the distance. "Have you ever heard anything like that noise – like Fire Nation patrol boats in the distance?"

Mitsumi cowered behind Katara as a huge human child chased a soccer ball the size of a large World Expo exhibit across the grass. Azula and everyone else decided to cower as well.

"Who wrecked that doll house?" The child asked as he ran up to his parents.

"La la la – Do di do." A voice rang out over the mid morning air. "Oh dear! What will persons think when they see this mess. Oh dear!"

"Oh bloody buggering hell!" Azula said with little or no restraint. Katara instinctively covered Meng's ears as Azula said much more that would prove unsuitable for most civilized groups.

"Other than swearing like a mill worker?" Karo complained as he brushed dust off his clothes. "What have you got to complain about?"

"La la la, do di do – _Pearlie is in the Park_!" Azula scowled at and then looked up. "We have would up in Jubilee Park!"

"Where?" Katara looked around.

"Karo's mom used to read him these stories about Pearlie the Park Fairy. When I had the flu this winter; he 'entertained' me with these stories." Azula grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. "Don't you recognize this place from those books?"

"What are you guys doing down here?" A delicate fairy with blond hair flew down and stood in front of the group as they cowered in the hole. She had a pink shirt and blue pants and wore pearls in her hair and she fluttered her pale blue wings as she hovered over the group.

"I am really going to pay for this – aren't I?" Karo almost whimpered.

"Indeed!" Azula growled as the rest of the group looked even more confused.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tales of Jubilee Park**

**Azula and the Land of the Park Fairy**

"I have these wings." Katara pointed at her translucent white wings as she spoke to the delicate looking fairy who stared at them as if they had fallen off a passing flying saucer.

"Of course you do!" The strange angelic creature said. "You are fairies except for Karo who's an elf."

"A what?" Karo felt his back and found short insect like wings rooted in his spine but decided to ignore this for now. "Can I ask where _we are_?"

"Welcome to Jubilee Park." The fairy announced as if it were self evident.

"And that is where?" Azula requested further clarification.

"I don't know what the persons call the city." The fairy said.

"I will quit asking questions." Azula said with resignation and began choking Karo with his collar.

"This won't help you." The fairy tried to pry apart Azula and Karo but utterly failed.

"Who are you?" Meng asked.

"I am Pearlie the Park Fairy." The fairy replied as she tried to intervene between Karo and Azula. "And you are?"

"I am Meng." Meng replied. "The girl in blue robes is named Katara and the elf is Karo and his fiance Azula."

"Oh dear? Do they always fight like this?" Pearlie sounded concerned.

"Who's fighting!" Azula yelled. "I have wings and so does Karo – this is how I deal with culture shock!"

"Killing Karo won't help us." Katara told Azula. "And Mitsumi would miss him."

"What will help us?" Azula dropped Karo.

"We need to gather all the things from the house and then figure out how to get back to Ba Sing Se." Katara spoke with some irritation as she lectured Azula.

"Whoa!" Karo scratched his wings in a way that reminded how he kept teasing the hole as a new adult tooth grew in. He felt very odd to have small insect like wings and his brain didn't quite have all of these new things worked out. "Back up the ostrich horses and make a stop at Figuring Stuff Out Avenue! Meng? As the expert in things supernatural – how did we come to be here?"

Meng pondered as everyone looked on. "I suppose the demon sent us to a realm where we would not trouble him and he could have his home back."

"A children's book?" Karo chimed in.

"It must have reality in the author's mind and in the minds of children who read it." Azula suggested. "In those pulp science fiction novels some of the writers have talked about how we live side by side with other realities."

"This _isn't _a paperback book bought for the price of a cheap meal!" Karo emphasized. "And I don't have my fission powered_ hover car_!"

"Oy!" A strange looking young man flew down to stand beside Pearlie. "Cool man! A fellow elf."

"Me?" Karo looked at the elf with the blue and green hat and his dreadlocks. They had matching wings. "Uh hi! I am sorry but our house fell out of the sky. This has left me a little confused."

"Come on." Azula beckoned to the rest of the assembled gang. "We need to look for our stuff in the house."

Azula tossed a brick to Katara as she slowly crawled through the half crushed window that led to her room. Katara followed her as did the rest of the gang including Jasper and Pearlie.

"My my!" Pearlie looked at the crushed wood and the heaps of rubble as Azula rooted through her collection of valuables.

"What happened to you guys?" Jasper took great care to avoid touching any of the dust covered ruins. Azula handed him a large fabric bag full of her books.

"A demon possessed our chestnut tree and when I kicked it; it shot our house and us into another dimension." Azula explained. "If you understand that then you have made more sense of this than me."

Karo made his way to his crushed room and began sorting through his wardrobe. Pearlie followed behind him as he pushed bricks off his bed and desk looking for important things to salvage in the mayhem.

"Did you see any trace of my mother?" Karo asked Pearlie as Pearlie helped with Karo's clothes.

"I didn't see anyone but you four." Pearlie said gently. "Your mom will be fine."

"How do you know that?" Karo said sadly.

"Whatever brought you here didn't want to hurt you." Pearlie smiled in a strangely innocent smile Karo half expected given that he had read the books. Karo had long had a relationship with Azula and he had a character prone to bouts of grave self doubt and depression. He had come to assume intelligence came paired with pessimism. Pearlie's innocent wisdom violated that rule.

Katara had no trouble finding her apartment since the basement had detached and split open as it struck the ground. Meng and Katara worked to pull out all of her possessions and pile them neatly amongst the rubble.

Pearlie lived in a clam shell at the base of a large statue of an old man with a trident next to a scantily clad middle aged mermaid. The whole thing rested in the midst of a larger fountain all cast out of reinforced concrete. Azula thought it looked like one of the gaudy cast bronze statues the Fire Nation of the Fire Lord stuck in the village squares of conquered villages like nails in the landscape but in even poorer taste. Whatever else this place had to offer; public architecture was not likely one of them.

Karo couldn't swim but Pearlie's house lay in the middle of a fountain. He needed to master flying to get up to the clam but as he looked at the water in the fountain in stretched out before him like some hideous moat. Jasper had helped him as best he could but Karo had no experience with personal flight. The airship and balloon relied on some kind of lighter than air gas like hydrogen or hot air so they simply floated in air. Flight did not exist as a personal growth possibility for Karo and he had trouble making his brain work his wings and fly.

Azula and Katara took some time to master flight but they did not have Karo's natural clumsiness and learned quickly. Meng took to flight immediately but she had a childhood education that included contact with the dead and the supernatural so she simply accepted her ability to fly. Pearlie had to caution Meng to keep out of the sight of _persons_ several times as Meng enjoyed the sensation of flying over a park at the speed of a swallow.

"How have I ended up in this place?" Karo leaned against the ledge of the clam and looked out over the green spaces and symmetrical rows of trees and flower beds that made up Jubilee Park. "Everything is as I remember it in the books. Pearlie's clam shell home, the park and the characters who live in the park."

"Dude? Why so glum? You'll find a home." Jasper stood next to Karo and looked out over the park.

"That pile of bent matchwood and bricks_ was_ my home!" Karo protested.

"Harsh." Jasper said as he patted Karo's back in a comforting manner. "I lost my home once."

"I really have no idea how I will cope with all of this." Karo said as his shoulders slumped.

"I recovered before you could entertain me with the second half of that story about Pearlie the Park Fairy." Azula walked up and stared at the blue sky and tried to make sense of the pattern of contrails that formed a geometric pattern overhead. "Is this the second half of the story?"

"I hadn't planned on crashing the house in my fable." Karo said glumly. "The second half of the story would have ended up with you having found a circle of people who cared for you."

"Busy persons." Azula ignored Karo's reply and pointed to the contrails. "They have mastered flight."

"Good for them." Karo sighed.

"Whee!" Meng flew by in her tan and green Earth Kingdom robes which Pearlie and Jasper suggested would do a better job of hiding her from prying eyes. She landed beside Jasper who now had begun to take notice of the contrails Azula found so entrancing.

"Quite enjoying this?" Azula asked Meng.

Pearlie had agreed to share her shell with Azula and Karo until they could find suitable living arrangements. Opal the Outback Fairy had agreed to put up Katara and Meng in the log she called home. The remains of the Zhao house had been cleaned up by persons in charge of park maintenance by the late afternoon who took it as an act of idle destruction by some unnamed hooligans.

"Do you want to talk?" Azula patted Karo on the back as he stared out of the edge of Pearlie's shell and looked out over the park.

"You have never proven a skilled counselor." Karo stared back at Azula as Mitsumi sat on his shoulder and took in all the new noises and sights.

"I don't want to talk about your problems." Azula said. "Let's talk boots."

"Huh?" Karo's elf wings quivered. "We have wound up in Fairyland and you want to talk about boots?"

"The Fire Nation noble ritual requires you to put your right boot on first." Azula plunged forward. "As we come from Fire Nation nobility I wonder if our training makes us all put on our boots in the same way or do some free thinkers do the odd change up and go left boot first?"

"You think about this?" Karo said as he looked out over the park.

"I wonder." Azula answered.

"I rebel and put my left boot on first when I feel like it – or if I am lazy and don't care." Karo didn't turn around.

"With your boxers do you prefer the ones that have the elastic or the ones that you tighten with a drawstring?" Azula asked.

"I am not having this conversation." Karo watched Pearlie hover and then land with a grace he could not fathom as he had proven such a clumsy flier.

"Gobsmack wants to meet with all of you at the fairy ring." Pearlie announced politely to Azula.

"Gobsmack?" Azula patted Karo's shoulder as she asked Pearlie about who Gobsmack could be.

"The goblin who works for Fairy HQ." Pearlie said as if that would explain everything. "He is in charge of law and order in the parks in the city."

"When do we leave to meet this Gobsmack?" Azula asked.

"He just arrived and I asked Opal to bring Meng and Katara to the Fairy Ring." Pearlie grabbed an overly pink clipboard and quill pen from a table. "Shall we go?"

"I feel wobbly! Evolution did not select my frame for flight!" Karo fell away from the ledge of the fountain that held the statues and the water of the fountain came uncomfortably close before something in his brain made his wings beat rapidly and he leveled out.

Azula had more skill at flying although she stalled several times and nearly fell out of the sky while attempting to land in the field of mushrooms called the Fairy Ring. Karo struck a mushroom and landed upright in the grass looking around like a confused parachutist.

"Pearlie!" A tall middle aged blond haired some kind of hominid said loudly. He wore a yellow tunic with a red poncho decorated gold banding about the neck. He wore dark purple gloves, tights and boots and he did his utmost to look officious. "Can you explain how these fairies came to be in Jubilee Park?"

"I don't know." Pearlie clasped her pink clipboard to her chest.

"Where did you come from?" Gobsmack looked at the elfish Karo sitting on the grass.

"Not here." Karo answered dryly. "When you have eliminated all the possibilities where I could come from; then tell me which place is left because I want to go home."

"Well." Gobsmack turned to Pearlie and Opal. "We have to investigate further at Fairy HQ so keep everyone out of trouble."

Gobsmack vanished from sight with a pop.

"How do we get out of here?" Azula asked Pearlie as Pearlie puttered around her kitchen preparing tea. "Do you know I once served as a soldier in a great army. I really can't imagine spending the rest of my life polishing roses and keeping those two stinky rats out of the popcorn cart."

"I wish my Great Aunt Garnet were here." Pearlie said sadly. "She went to the Fairy Godmother convention and won't be back for a week. I have been running the store for her so I really appreciate your help."

"This Great Aunt Garnet can help us?" Azula sat on the couch as Pearlie offered her tea.

"Great Aunt Garnet is very wise." Pearlie said reassuringly. "She knows more about magic and spirits than I do."

"I have spent two days in your reality." Azula pondered. "I miss my world."

"The flowers look perfect – you do good work." Pearlie said as she dusted her little shell. "You will feel better when you find a home."

"Karo and I found a nice fixer upper near the north gate of the park." Azula looked into her cup of tea. "A nice roomy place in a pleasant maple tree but the wasps wouldn't leave and they make terrible pets."

"Grunt!" Karo complained as he struck the floor of Pearlie's shell and collided with the coffee table in a terrible landing that showed he utterly misjudged the scale of the shell. "I have bad eyesight and no depth perception."

"How did it go?" Pearlie asked Karo as he held up a clipboard. "Are all the inspections of dens and burrows complete?"

"Did you know this park has a rugby field? I had expected that. We have a playground for kids – normal for a park." Karo said as he stood up and tried to make himself look neater. "The dense, spooky rainforest did come as a bit of a surprise when I blundered into it. We have about five billion bats and a species of glowing green millipedes. None of the bats would talk to me and I refuse to have a conversation with a revolting green creature with more legs than most gay chorus lines."

"Oh? Sorry I should have told you about the rain forest." Pearlie brushed off Karo's Fire Nation uniform. "We only go in the rain forest to collect material for our spells and potions."

"I finished inspecting the dens and burrows for the animals and everything is in good order." Karo handed a wooden clipboard to Pearlie. "The rabbit population continues to increase but the three teenage boys with air rifles have undertaken efforts to cull them."

"Why cants we take some of the popcorn Miss Azula?" The thin rat with the equally ratty tan Tilley hat begged. "We needs our snacks or we will starve."

"I will make you a deal." Azula grinned wickedly. "You can have all the popcorn from the popcorn cart if you can get past me."

"We cants outrun a fairy – theys can fly." The thin rat replied as he looked at his fat friend in the orange jogging suit.

"I won't use my power of flight." Azula grinned in her evil way as she tossed a blue fire bolt between her hands and looked menacingly at the rats. "I can be sporting."

"Okays!" The thin rat begged. "We's got no taste for popcorn. Scraggs lets get out of here."

The rats ran off away from the kiosk that served park patrons and dove into a large drain.

"We found something about the job as a park fairy we enjoy?" Katara flew out of the sky and landed next to Azula. Katara still wore her favorite water tribe fashions as she fluttered out of the warm air on her wax paper white wings.

"I don't know how much I can take of this." Azula turned to face Katara. "A sunny mid morning summer day and I wind up herding rats. I have spent three days here and while pretty pink Pearlie has treated me well but if I have to endure her cheerful optimistic innocence I am going to whack her in the back of the head with a shovel and bury her in a shallow grave on the edge of the park."

"Haven't you found a place to live?" Katara asked. "I found a nice cave in the rocks near the pond so I can hear the water. Meng is still looking but she is staying with me. You should come over for tea tonight and we can show you what a little magic and bending can do to make a nice place to live."

"I have sent Karo out to look but all he has found are dingy burrows under trees or dangerous holes used by wasps." Azula's delicately colored transparent red wings drooped then she shook her fist defiantly. "I give it one more day and we storm Saphira's Spa and take it in the name of the Fire Nation!"

"You can't mean that!" Katara said with some concern.

"No." Azula admitted with some resignation. "I can't live too long with a girly girl like Pearlie. I fear I may become a girly girl and start liking pink fluffy bunnies and start caring about fashion."

"I can't see that happening." Katara stepped back as Karo fell out of the sky and landed in the relative softness of the popcorn cart. A cloud of yellow white popcorn flew into the air.

"I badly need depth perception." Karo climbed out of the popcorn cart and made a soft landing on the ground.

"I found a place to live." Karo announced as he picked out popcorn from his hair.

"You said that yesterday!" Azula grumbled. "We can't live with wasps or other social insects."

"Can you come with us Katara?" Karo asked. "Maybe you can give us your opinion on this."

"Person's haven't visited this place in years!" Karo spoke with enthusiasm as he stood in front of the small metal shed that housed the now unused air raid sirens. "It has plenty of room and because it's metal we can decorate it in the manner of the traditional Fire Nation."

The padlock had long rusted off and the metal door stood partly ajar with a picnic basket sized rusty hole in the metal. The Civil Defense Authority had set up the tower as a means of warning the local population of an impending air raid on the city and then it had functioned as an emergency means of notifying the citizens of the city in the events Soviet Russia had decided to bomb the city with a nuclear warhead. The Ministry of Defense had long since decommissioned the transmitter as the enemies once so feared no longer posed a threat. Nuclear weapons posed a threat but since most people would get vaporized anyway the federal government decided to spend their money on other things the auditor general could not track in the budget.

"How old _is_ this place?" Azula noticed a thick layer of dust on the floor and cold war era radio electronics rack mounted on the wall.

"Like I said – persons never come here." Karo spread his arms in triumph. "The place is _ours_!"

Katara watched as Azula traced a thin outline in the floor with her foot that formed a large rectangle with a ling thin metal handle inset on the right side. Azula cleared the dust to reveal a large metal trap door. Without a word, Azula feeling curious and needing to let off some inner rage let loose a lightning attack which tore the metal door off its hinges. The metal door fell in with a louder crash than the bang of lightning she had created and she found a shallow space under the floor filled with papers, maps and small books. Much to her surprise the crawl space had dim lighting provided by glowing orange lights set into the ceiling.

"Azula!" Karo flew in the air and looked around. "What if person's heard that?"

"I like this space." Azula wandered through the crawlspace. "It looks Fire Nation."

"It looks creepy." Katara peered into the crawl space. "Why do you like it?"

"It reminds me of a Fire Nation destroyer." Azula rifled through a stack of maps. "I can set up my four poster bed in that corner and Karo can have his nerd nook in the other corner and we can stack all these books and files to make rooms."

"This place smells like an old folks home." Karo stepped down into the concrete crawl space.

"I wonder what all these books and papers are about?" Azula could recognize maps but could not read the fine printing on any of them. "Who could read these things."

"Hey dudes! Opal, Meng and I have searched all over the park for you." Jasper flew in through the open door and landed in front of Katara. "Man I have never been inside this place."

"What is this place?" Karo asked as he leaned over the opening in the floor.

"We call it the big noisy." Jasper had a curious nature and flew down into the hole to join Azula as she inspected the place. "The persons used to used this to warn the city of danger but they don't come here anymore."

"Can you read this?" Azula pointed to a small green book she had found open on the floor.

"January 24th 1958." Jasper looked over the handwritten book. "Soviet success in launching Second Sputnik has placed Station Jubilee on high alert. Code for Today is Echo Charlie Zulu 241 Omega."

"I understood none of that." Karo said and then sneezed as the dust reached his nostrils.

"Neither did I." Jasper admitted with his usual honesty.

"I will let you keep the autographed picture of Ronald Reagan although I don't know why you'd want it." Azula had made a bed of cypher manuals from the Second World War and sat on the edge of her grand bed and dangled her legs. It had taken her much work to make a bed fit for a princess. She had wanted a grand for poster bed and had arranged the code books to form a grand set of steps and then covered them with crimson carpet. They had put their home together between work in the park for three days making the place look especially Fire Nation in spite of Pearlie's attempts to make everything pink and pretty. The old crawl space had begun to look like a Fire Nation destroyer right down to the choice of red rugs with gold dragon inlays as floor coverings (Pearlie had made them pink) and the banners that decorated the space set out as the living room. Pearlie had to dissuade Azula from having torches and open flames close to old and dry paper but that was Azula's only compromise to Pearlie's delicate tastes.

"Ever since Pearlie cast that spell on us that let use read person's books I found out he was a free market economist who opposed Communism." Karo and Jasper began to push the cheaply framed picture into the space he had set aside as Karo's room. "We all need heroes."

"You didn't want that newspaper picture of General _Hideki Tojo_ to hang in the living room." Azula crossed her arms and looked serious. "But then again I couldn't find a proper frame. A real loss since he looked very Fire Nation."

"We still have much work to do." Azula said. "We have found a place to live that offers shelter and working lights but we still don't have a working kitchen and we need a bathroom."

"This place looks like a Fire Nation bunker." Karo said.

Jasper tugged the wrong way and the picture of Ronald Reagan toppled over and the glass broke.

"Sorry dude." Jasper said. "I was never good with right and left."

"The Bunker?" Azula scratched her chin and pondered the name. "I like that name."

"Ludwig came to the store and said you wanted to meet with me?" Pearlie stood at the door politely as Spahira answered it and motioned her inside her glass house. "Do you need a special order?"

"Let me get to the point. I don't think your friend Azula will make a good member of the fairy community of Jubilee Park." Saphira sat down on a crimson dais in her spa as Pearlie paced the room and looked at various plants. "You must admit she doesn't act very ladylike and her best friend the elf can hardly fly."

"Azula has worked hard while I've been away minding the store for Great Aunt Garnet." Pearlie said cheerfully.

"She addresses the Mistress in a most rude manner." Ludwig the Bat added in his thick German accent. He hung from a lamp and had his wings folded across his body as he listened to Pearlie and Saphira. "She calls her Saphira."

"That's her name." Pearlie shrugged.

"What do we know about her and her elf companion?" Saphira continued as she tapped her wand against her leg.

"Hello?" Karo knocked at the door. "Opal told me I could find you here. We have been hunting all over the park for Pearlie."

"What do you want?" Saphira snapped her fingers and motioned for Ludwig to open the door.

"Jasper lives in a post box." Karo cleared his throat. "He got a parcel this morning."

"He did?" Pearlie gasped. "Do you know what it is?"

"It came from Fed Ex – whatever that is." Karo held out a computer printed label and handed it to Pearlie. "Person or persons sent it to Jasper."

"Oh my!" Pearlie held the address label out like a large map and examined it. "Why would the Walnut Computer Whatsit Company of Someplace in China send Jasper a parcel?"

"What is a computer?" Saphira asked with detached curiosity.

"I have no idea. I have no idea about China or why they would send us a parcel so I suppose I don't really have much information to offer." Karo admitted. "Maybe a kind of an abacus?"

"A parcel." Pearlie mused.

"The parcel is about so big." Karo gestured by waving his arms.

Pearlie and Karo flew off toward Jasper's home with Pearlie holding the rolled up packing label. Saphira waited for her annoying cousin Pearlie to leave and then with Ludwig in tow; made her way toward Jasper's home to spy on them. By the time Karo and Pearlie had arrived at Jasper's post box – they found the box sitting on the ground. Azula, Jasper and Opal had already opened the box but all of them stood on the edge of the large cardboard carton and peered in at the well packed contents wondering what to do next.

"Pearlie." Jasper and Opal yelled out. "Do you know what this is?"

"No." Pearlie stood next to Opal and peered at the sleek silver rectangle in the cardboard box.

"Its all wrapped up in this clear stuff and packed with white foam." Azula complained. "I think it's a bomb."

"What!" Pearlie said with some astonishment. "Let's not overreact."

"That's a bit paranoid." Karo said. "Why would persons want to blow up Jasper's home?"

"Persons could have sent it here by mistake." Opal offered. "Looks like the thing persons use when sitting at the picnic tables."

"Congratulations on your purchase of a Walnut Computer Company iNut Model i270." Jasper held out the Warranty Information Card he found sitting at the top of the contents of the box. "To receive full warranty service and technical support please fill out this card and return it within 30 days. Man! This is so bad!"

The group had managed to sneak the box with its contents back to Azula and Karo's new living quarters – the bunker as Azula called it. The bunker had a good deal of room for opening the box and inspecting its contents and it was also far away from the prying eyes of persons or fairies. The bunker had electrical power which according to the papers in the package that strange device demanded.

"We have to free the King of the Elves and His court!" Jasper said desperately as he carried a chunk of the white foam that held the computer in its box. "The persons have them working in a hidden fortress making these things."

"How do we find him?" Opal asked as she tore off the plastic covering the computer.

"We use this thing." Azula had one end of a long black flexible cable in her arms and had decided to take the initiative and begin plugging things into other things. "We can speed to the rescue at a top speed of twenty five kilometers an hour. We can speed along at speeds that would have amazed the fastest of snails and head to exotic places undreamed of by most fairies like that roof garden on top of that tall building downtown."

"What are you trying to say mate?" Opal asked.

"Nothing." Azula said as she yanked on the cord. "Just venting."

"We have no idea where to find him but he must have sent us this thing to give us clues. He could have sent Jasper a secret letter but he sent this person's thing. " Azula shoved the pronged end of the plug into an old outlet in the wall. "They call it a computer."

"The message from the Elf King said only we can save him and his court." Jasper helped Karo take the cardboard box apart by ripping the sides apart. The sides of the cardboard box fell away and revealed a shiny silver computer. No one had a clue where to proceed from here so Karo and Jasper sat down beside the machine and looked around their workspace for the large pieces of paper entitled the _Quick Setup Guide_.

"Do your people know anything about these kinds of machines?" Pearlie asked as she watched Azula struggle with the round end of the long black cord.

"Not at all. I am just guessing here. Our people still drop dead from polio." Azula reminded Pearlie. "The house I lived in has only had electric light for two years and we had those bulbs shaped like a bulb – not those twisty spiral things hanging out of the sockets in the kiosk and rotunda. At least the plugs plug the same way."

"It says to take the round end and plug it in the back." Karo yelled out to Azula. "This may take some time because then we have to open the thing like a book and turn the power on."

"Exactly what are we doing here?" Jasper asked as he stood on the touchpad of the laptop computer. The engineers had not designed laptops for fairy folk and the keyboard and touchpad worked on a huge scale. After struggling to open the machine and power it up, they had managed to get the thing to display some kind of graphical user interface.

"Can you slide to your left – no that's my left!" Azula stood at the front of the laptop and shouted instructions and watched a pointer shaped like an arrow move as Jasper stepped across the 'dance floor' as he named it.

"What are you doing?" Katara and Meng flew into the bunker having completed their list of park tasks. "What is that big shiny thing?"

"Don't know and don't know." Azula answered back.

"We have a persons thing that came to Jasper." Pearlie explained. "The Elf King sent it to us and sent Jasper a message because persons captured him and his court and kidnapped him."

"He could have told us how to use this thing." Karo complained as he hovered over the _F1_ key waiting for Azula to instruct him where to go. Meng hovered beside Karo in her delicate but somehow more ornate tan and green robes as she looked down on the huge keyboard.

"Look! On the screen thing." Jasper called out. "A picture with the elf king's name!"

Jasper wheeled on the touchpad and tried to make the arrow move to the icon and then hoped something meaningful to happen but nothing did.

"What do I do now?"

"Fly." Azula said. "Jump on the button on the bottom twice."

"What will – oh!" Jasper watched as he jumped and the pointer changed to a colored wheel and then a letter written in the ornate script of Fairy popped up on the screen.

Karo banged into the screen like a moth as he watched the strange characters. He couldn't read Fairy all that well. Azula looked at Jasper who had grown agitated.

"King Urbino II" Jasper began as the assembled audience watched. "I greet you Jasper the Elf. I have done much magic to bring to you all those you will need to rescue me. All these strangers have the talents you will need to rescue the Elf Royal Court."

"How polite of him to ask us first." Azula sneered.

"Please!" Pearlie chastened Azula.

"We have found ourselves captured by persons but we don't know where they have taken us. They have made us slaves and plan to find all the elves and enslave them." Jasper stopped. "Dudes! Man this sounds real bad."

"The persons have the Elf King prisoner." Saphira snickered as Ludwig listened to the others. They sat hidden behind on of the racks of equipment that populated the small hut above the Bunker. "Oh this is so choice."

"What do you plan to do Mistress?" Ludwig whispered as his bat ears twitched.

"I don't know." Saphira mused as she smoothed out her dark blue spider web themed skirt. "If I played a role in rescuing an elf king then the dimwitted elves would owe me a favor. Of course seeing all these nitwits taken prisoner by persons would leave me in charge."

"You must feel privileged." Pearlie smiled at Azula who had a stern look on her face. "The Elf King chose your friends to help us in this rescue."

"I feel violated." Azula crossed her arms and tapped her fingers. "What gives the Elf King the right to snatch me from my life and bring me to Jubilee Park?"

"You have to help us man!" Jasper pleaded and stepped off the laptop to face Azula.

"I do?" Azula sounded doubtful.

"Would you help us Karo?" Pearlie asked Karo as he beetled about counting the beetles that crawled around the rose bushes. A day had passed since the arrival of the fateful package and no one knew what to do. Jasper had grown very upset as he thought of his king and Pearlie found it heartbreaking to talk to him. Azula remained angry and grumbled about having been kidnapped. Katara and Meng had requested time to think things over and Karo had remained his own strange self.

"I think you see this Fire Nation uniform and you think I have the same strong will as Princess Azula." Karo watched a beetle out of the corner of his eye as he spoke with Pearlie. "A manly man full of courage and well whatever you associate with manly men."

"No. Not at all." Pearlie smiled.

"No one ever does." Karo wrote down something on a piece of paper on his clipboard.

"I want to get something out of this deal." Azula glided out of the sky. "Jasper came to try and convince me to help. Jasper says his king will suffer a fate worse than any imaginable at the hands of persons."

"What did you say?" Karo asked.

"What do I get out of this?" Azula raised her eyebrow.

"The respect of the elves and the whole of Fairy Land." Pearlie faced Azula and tried her best to speak with authority to the strange princess.

"I am mulling it over." Azula scratched her cheek as Pearlie, Jasper and Karo looked on. "If I don't go then Karo and you all might get crushed."

"And you want to protect all of us?" Pearlie suggested coyly.

"I don't necessarily consider your doom a bad thing for me." Azula looked at Pearlie. "But I love the hideous irony. I never won fame when I tried to conquer the world but I win fame by saving a pacifist king. The Universe seldom hands out such irony so generously."

"What did you say?" Pearlie looked confused.

"She's going." Karo said quietly.

"I will go." Azula answered as quietly. "I know Karo will go because he has a kind heart and wants to help. He would get crushed because while he has a big heart he has two left wings and bad eyesight so I will go."

"Do you think we can rescue the Elf King?" Pearlie leaned in and asked Azula.

"We will succeed or die." Azula answered back in her stern and blunt manner. "I wouldn't leave without putting my estate in order."

Karo gulped and then fell over as a large green beetle going about beetle business pushed past him without looking and knocked him down. His clipboard went flying and landed in the hands of Pearlie.

Jasper sat on the edge of the laptop looking down at the ground feeling his necklace of yellow beads and looking sad.

"You look sadder than day old french fries." Karo said as he passed by Jasper.

"I have no idea where to find the Elf King - dude." Jasper sat with his head in his hands.

"What does Pearlie say?" Karo walked across the laptop keyboard.

"We will find him." Jasper looked up at Karo.

"I lived through a war." Karo began. "When the Fire Nation invaded my city; they had orders to take my mom and me prisoner because they considered us traitors. We spent the better part of a year hiding in the basements of houses. At some point I lost hope but the war ended."

"You are Fire Nation. How come they would arrest you?" Jasper looked up at Karo confused.

"We fled a cruel but powerful man. He never forgave my mother for leaving him." Karo continued glumly.

"I can't do this." Jasper sat quietly.

"I have no idea what to say." Karo walked along the edge of the laptop and studied the small lights wondering what they signified. "I remain Fire Nation and I have a duty before me. We may fail and get crushed."

"Dude! That isn't helping." Jasper exclaimed.

"I didn't say it would." Karo said slowly. "If we don't try though; the Elf King will suffer. What can we do but try?"

"Very brave." Azula hovered over the keyboard of the laptop and clapped. "Evolution loves the fat, lazy and stupid. It hates the brave, dutiful and heroic and will go out of its way to kill anyone foolhardy enough to try to do something courageous."

"You can't mean that." Jasper looked up at the imposing princess with her piecing amber eyes.

"I don't." Azula stood by the touchpad of the laptop and put her hands on her hips.

"I don't feel in the mood for jokes." Jasper sounded upset. "This isn't a good time for me."

"I came to have a look at this machine." Azula decided to plunge ahead. "Why would the Elf King send you this fancy gadget when a letter would do?"

"You think he left directions to find him on this machine?" Karo walked over to Azula.

"Not literally in the machine." Azula began as Jasper stood up and walked over. "Think of this thing as sort of a library which holds things the Elf King wanted us to know. I wish I knew more about it but that is why I need you two."

"A gift from the Elf King?" Saphira rode into the bunker riding sidesaddle on poor Ludwig.

"Why are you here?" Azula walked onto the touchpad of the laptop and the screen lit up and the machine made a chiming sound. Saphira cringed for a split second and Ludwig hid behind her.

"I came to offer my help." Saphire said and tried to fake concern.

"Since when do you care about the elves?" Jasper said angrily.

"Help us?" Azula watched the arrow move across the screen as she slid along the touchpad. "You know you could end up as a pasty goo on the bottom of some person's shoe?"

"Eww!" Saphira recoiled. "I will stay behind and keep an eye on the park."

"Say hello to the new park fairies." Katara's voice rang out over the Bunker. Katara and Meng flew in just as Saphira glared at Azula. "Pearlie and Opal asked us to help and Gobsmack gave his approval. We will look after Jubilee Park while you are away."

"Why wasn't I asked?" Saphira whined.

"You're coming with us to rescue the Elf King." Azula said casually as she played with the computer. "Didn't you offer?"

"I...I never!" Saphira stuttered and tried to find a way to save her reputation.

"Were as brave as Jasper, Pearlie or Opal?" Azula sneered. "Or our pet lemur?"

"I will go to supply my special talents!" Saphira put her hands on her hips and spoke as if delivering a pronouncement. "Ludwig will accompany me."

"But Mistress!" Ludwig begged. "We could _die_!"

"Saphira has offered to join us on our mission" Azula sat in Pearlie's clam shell home and sipped something from a pink cup called gum nut tea.

"Are you sure that's wise? Who will care for the spa?" Pearlie showed grave concern as she sipped her tea.

"Ludwig refuses to join us so he will care for the spa and keep the spa customers happy." Azula said with some disdain. "I will tell you but I don't trust your cousin Saphira. She has some ulterior motive for helping us rescue the Elf King."

"Saphira means well – she's just a teeny bit pushy." Pearlie made a small gape between her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the scale.

"In a military operation you want three kinds of people, the intelligent, the brave and the foolish." Azula placed her cup in its pink saucer. "The intelligent person will seek to prove his worth, the brave person will seek to prove his courage and the foolish person has no fear of death."

"Oh my!" Pearlie had no military experience and had moments when she forgot Azula had once been a soldier and thought like one.

"Saphira doesn't seem to have great intelligence, nor is she brave and at the same time is not a fool." Azula told Pearlie. "Karo and Jasper have intelligence, you and Opal have the bravery. Saphira plots and schemes."

"What do you bring to this mission?" Pearlie looked at Azula with her green eyes.

"I have to somehow keep you all from getting crushed." Azula said with no hesitation.

Two days had passed as Jasper and Karo sought to make the laptop do more than emit pings and error messages in a window. Azula had made some progress with the machine but she felt like a steam locomotive engineer suddenly given the latest Boeing passenger jet to fly. She had taken the mathematics courses and knew the theory behind computing devices but they only existed as theoretical beasts. She had seen one proposal put forward by a Ba Sing Se mathematician to build a machine to do sums fast and even proposed to build it to aid the University. It had one problem: the machine took up as much space as a rugby pitch and the rugby team did not wish to give up their pitch. "Dude!" Jasper yelled out in excitement a moment after the laptop made a ping.

"We have spent most of two days playing with this thing." Karo lay back next to the touchpad to rest his eyes as he scratched Mitsumi's hairy little head. Jasper had an easy going nature and Karo had learned much from him about the art of napping. "This machine pings and barfs errors. Mitsumi pings and barfs small bugs - I wonder if they are related. Too bad we don't know what '_kernel panic_' means."

"I found something!" Jasper rushed over to Karo and pulled him to his feet.

"You found a bargain on another green and blue hat? Saphira's spa has a sale on dreads?" Karo sounded tired and frustrated and stood up reluctantly.

"I found this program that shows pictures." Jasper pointed at the screen. "This picture popped up on the screen right away!"

"How did they get such a high view?" Karo scratched his head as he looked at the imagine filling the screen. "Is that somewhere near here?"

"This factory belongs to the Walnut Computer Company." Jasper explained and tried to make the mouse pointer hover over one group of rather drab looking industrial buildings by rushing over to the touchpad and pushing on it.

"And so?" Karo looked at the black roof of a group of dingy looking industrial buildings. The detail proved quite astonishing and Karo could read the Chinese characters for Left Turn Lane painted in orange paint on the street outside of the factory complex.

"We have to find a way to China." Jasper said.

"Are we near China?" Karo asked hoping China would wind up being the country they lived in and the factories would lie near the city.

"China?" Jasper sighed and looked sad. "No. It's half a world away."


End file.
